JOY'S STORY

What will you do when your life is suddenly turned upside down and you can't find help anywhere you look?  Sometimes you just can't dial an emergency telephone number, or look in the Yellow Pages for help.   A friend shared an  experience that highlights why it is important to be in tune with God before the "emergency"  comes your way. Here is Joy's story.

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"We had a really great week in Bulawayo. We got back home at the farm at 6:45 p.m., and had a very different night. With six tired children, we gave them supper and got them settled in bed. Carol had showered and was ready for bed. I was going to shower, but she wanted to relax a bit so we sat down in the dining room to relax and nibble some crisps with a glass of milk. We were chatting for about ten minutes when I saw a sudden movement and in a second four armed men seemed to glide into the dining room from the passage way.

Now I must tell you that about four months ago, four couples in the Shamva area were attacked in a two week period and they were all beaten on the head. When this happened, the one lady told me that her first reaction was fear and panic. When she was knocked to the floor she cried out to the Lord and heard a voice say to her, "Do not panic I am with you." With that she shouted to her husband who was bleeding from the head facing one of the two intruders, "Do not panic God is here, we will be O.K." With that he took a step towards his intruder who got a shock and started to step backwards - so much so that he fell over the settee. Her husband quickly dodged into the bedroom off the lounge, grabbed his pistol, and came out. The two intruders then fled. She shared with me that the problem was that you get such a shock that you are paralyzed with fear and panic.

I thought about this and I wondered how I would react if someone walked in on me remembering that 2 Tim. 1:7 says "For God has not given us a spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of sound mind." I prayed that the Lord would enable me to greet any unexpected intruders into my home in His Name and not be paralyzed with fear and panic. Well, you may not believe it but when I saw these men in my dining room, I heard myself saying, without even thinking, "Oh hello, it looks like the Lord has sent us some visitors tonight." Carol was a bit awestruck at first but the most unpleasant one of the four said to us "shh...sshh" . . . and to Carol, "Where's your husband." She told him that he was in Harare. He checked the kitchen to make sure there was no one else with us and then asked, "How many of you are here." Carol assured him that there was just her, me, and "many children - so please, could they not make any noise and wake the children as she did not want them to be frightened."

They said they wanted our money and if we did not co-operate they would shoot us. Two of them were holding their pistols on us. We had stood up by this stage. They said they would not wake the children and all we needed to do was co-operate. One of them asked where was the safe and the money. We said that we had just come home from Bulawayo and that we had no money, but they said that "we have inside information that you have money here, so come on and show us the safe." They coerced us through to the passage where Carol gave the keys to one of them. He then he said, "you open it" as he did not know which key it was. We could not all fit into the office so after Carol opened the safe they kept us in the passage under armed surveillance. They were very disappointed that I had only a very small amount of money in the safe and demanded to know where the rest of the money was and where was my forex. We kept assuring them that we did not have any. They finally took money out of a dozen odd pay packets that some of the staff had not collected before we went to Bulawayo.

They looked up and spotted the gun cupboard with the padlock and asked for the key. I said that Andrew had a key for that cabinet. They took ages to break the padlock with a heavy duty screw driver. While all this was going on I said to Carol we are not going to just sit here we are going to stand up and praise the Lord and pray for these men - which we did loud and clear. We praised the Lord with raised arms that He was there with us, that He saw what was happening, and that He would forgive these men if they stopped doing the things that they were doing. Every time one of them walked passed us I told him that Jesus loved him. We told them exactly what they would find in each place but they did not believe us.

One of the men went into Carol's room and went through her bag, grabbed her cell phone from next to her bed, and took money from her bag. He also took money that she had in her Bible. They were actually looking for her forex which of course she did not have. When they went through the safe they took all her jewelry from Granny which was probably the only really valuable jewelry in my house. Then they went to my bedroom, where the children were sleeping on mattresses. They went through my handbag and looked in a few other places, but I had virtually no money or anything of value anywhere. I was able to kick my cell phone, which was lying on the floor with some things, under the desk next to my bed and empty a bag of washing on top of it so they did not get that. When they could not find any more money, they asked for the car key, and sadly we were in Andrew's new second -hand Mercedes. Carol had to go with them to the car to show them how to start it. They wanted assurance that there was no cut-off switch that would disable the car just down the road. We were then held under guard in the hallway while they took ages to plan out their get-a-way. I asked the man near me if he knew the mystery of the Bible. He replied that he did not, so I read and explained John 3:16 to him.

Then I asked if he knew what God was doing for him right then. Again, he replied that he did not. So, I read John 14 - the whole chapter making it very personal for him. This younger man seemed to have a kind of respect for us. They seemed to take a long time making sure of their escape. They finally told the man guarding us to lock us up so that they could go. He asked Carol where he should lock us up and she said, "well you can lock us in this bedroom then we will not disturb the children in the other two rooms." So he locked us in there, and he left the key in the door! We waited until we were sure they were gone, and then we jumped out. We got into my bedroom window and went straight to the radio to call Andrew. They had gotten into the house through my bedroom window as all the doors were locked, and had jumped over Rachel who was sleeping right there. None of the children even stirred while all this was going on. Carol explained it all to them in the morning so that they would not be upset when the police came. This was now after 10:00 p.m. and by 11:30 we had the police in three groups there taking statements from us and our two guards who had been held hostage by a fifth man that we did not know was there.

Saturday morning saw us giving statements to the authorities, and the finger print people were there at the house. They left us just after 10:00 p.m.on Friday night. On Saturday evening, at about 6:30 pm, a foot patrol of police in a suburb of Harare saw a car going very slowly. It stopped and a man got out. When the police foot patrol was still quite some distance away, three men abandoned the car and fled into the long grass along the roadside. The police decided to investigate and found the car perfectly O.K. with the key still in the ignition. They decided it had to be a stolen car and pushed it to their Police post. They could only confirm on Monday that it was a stolen car. We collected our "stolen car" on Wednesday morning, in perfect order except for a defaced radio. Did the men in the car see angels instead of the police? Our experience once again clearly demonstrates that God answers prayer, and our God is powerful in all situations. To Him be the glory. Joy"